I figure I’m about half way through my life, and I want to capture every moment of joy and happiness, record it to be savoured as the days go by. This is my quest: to see the beauty of the earth and recognize the hand of God in my life and the world around me in everyday moments.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Story Telling

We live our lives by telling ourselves stories about what is happening. It's our way of explaining events to ourselves, to gain understanding and make meaning of our lives. We rely on previous stories we've told ourselves to define our new experiences. We learn how to interpret events from our family, religion, culture, friends, media, I expect the list of influence is long.

An interesting technique I learned in college while taking my professional writing program was to take an existing story, for example Little Red Riding Hood and rewrite it from a different perspective, perhaps the wolf's or grandma's.

This can be applied to our own stories. Perhaps we've told ourselves the same story over and over again about something that happened in our past. We know it off by heart and it never varies. It explains why things happened from one perspective - ours.

I'm finding it fascinating to rewrite my stories with new perspectives. To look for the good things and the joyful things in my sad stories. It is possible to find joy in any situation, sometimes it takes a lot of digging, but it's there to be found if we choose to look.